Black. Gay. Father. Vegetarian. Buddhist. Liberal.

Boehner’s Exit Leaves House Republicans Without Adult Supervision

September 29, 2015by terrance

Boehner’s Exit Leaves House Republicans Without Adult Supervision

House Speaker John Boehner is like the ineffectual substitute teacher whose presence barely keeps an unruly class in line, and whose exit ensures that chaos will ensue. Boehner’s exit leaves a chaotic House GOP without adult supervision.

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R, Ohio), announced that he would resign from Congress, after 25 years, effective on October 30. Though Boehner was apparently deeply moved by meeting Pope Francis and hearing the pontiff address a joint session of Congress, and there was some speculation that it was Boehner’s tipping point, Boehner himself suggested that he’d just had enough of trying to keep the most radical members of his caucus in line.

“The Bible says beware of false prophets. And there are people out there, you know, spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean this whole notion that we’re going to shut down the government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013 – this plan never had a chance,” Boehner said.

“But over the course of the August recess in 2013 and in September, a lot of my Republican colleagues who knew this was a fool’s errand — really, they were getting all this pressure from home to do this,” he added.

Boehner said that conservative groups and lawmakers had “whipped people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things that they know — they know — are never going to happen.” Boehner was speaking of the 2013 government shutdown over defunding the Affordable Care Act, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R, Texas). But he could just have easily been talking about the current efforts of House Republicans to shut down the government over defunding Planned Parenthood.

Then as now, House Republicans are threatening to take the entire nation hostage, to accomplish what they failed to through any legitimate means —. Republicans twice failed to defeat Barack Obama, who made health care reform a central issue of his campaign; failed to stop Congress from passing the Affordable Care Act; and twice failed to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn the law. An overwhelming 72 percent of Americans — including most Republicans — were opposed to a government shutdown before it happened. Afterward, the GOP suffered major damage, as 53 percent of Americans blamed the GOP for the shutdown; 32 percent said they had a favorable view of the GOP, while 63 percent had an unfavorable view of Republicans.

Now, Republican hardliners want to force another government shutdown, over defunding Planned Parenthood. The movement to defund Planned Parenthood arises in the aftermath of the release of deceptively-edited, fraudulent videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood officials talking with potential “vendors” about harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted fetuses. The organization accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, and dedicates three percent of its resources to abortion services.

As with the 2013 shutdown, House Republicans are pushing an agenda most Americans don’t want. Multiple state investigations have found that the charges leveled against Planned Parenthood are bogus. A majority of Americans support government funding for Planned Parenthood. Over 70 percent of Americans opposed a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood.

Defunding Planned Parenthood would cost the federal government dearly. Federal spending would increase $130 million over ten years. Women who depend on Planned Parenthood’s services would have a harder time avoiding unwanted pregnancies. Their additional births would be covered by Medicaid, and the needs of their children would have to be met by other safety net programs, increasing Medicaid spending alone by $650 million. Net spending would increase by far more than the cost of funding Planned Parenthood.

Defunding Obamacare would have dire consequences for millions of Americans. Over 17 million who have gained health care coverage would rejoin the ranks of the uninsured. Millions more who gained coverage as a result of the Medicaid expansion would lose their coverage as well. The results would wreak havoc on our health and health care system.

This is to say nothing of the $7.1 trillion the RSC budget would cut; much more than the $5.5 trillion cut by the House GOP budget blueprint introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R, Georgia). It would increase the Pentagon base budget from $523 billion under the House budget to $570 billion, while cutting non-defense discretionary spending on domestic programs by $88 billion, including cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

This is not “hard core” enough for the “Freedom Caucus” fringe who finally succeeded in getting rid of John Boehner. As Speaker of the House John Boehner was often the only grown-up in the room, compared to the rest of his caucus. Eugene Robinson compared John Boehner to “a hapless substitute teacher whose unruly class refuses to come to order.” Now, Boehner’s exit leaves his chaotic caucus entirely without adult supervision.

Like this:

Related

Oh, come on. Christian Bale has a point. If Moses were around today — “hearing voices” and acting out — he’d probably be diagnosable as schizophrenic. After all, when people “hear voices” today, they end up as mental health patients, not prophets.